Increasing revenue signifies success. However, this is not always an easy task. Volatile market conditions are not always favourable. Inefficiencies can lead to a disconnect between your front-office and back-office operations, hampering revenue growth. Ineffective sales strategies can leave you chasing competitors for new leads, while a poor customer experience may be driving your customers away, knocking your revenue.
For a business to succeed, it must have an excellent grasp of the basics of revenue growth and be attentive to factors that may lead to lost sales opportunities, poor customer retention and inefficient operations.
But all is not lost. With some careful assessment and a few timely changes in how you operate, you can boost your revenue and return to a state of growth.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at some common reasons why you’re not increasing your revenue, unpack some strategies for kick-starting your revenue growth, and explore the role of technology as a revenue booster and enabler.
There are many reasons why companies may struggle to increase their revenue. Let’s take a look at some of the common challenges that companies face:
This is one of the most obvious reasons you’re not increasing your revenue. Sales are the lifeblood of an organisation’s revenue. You will struggle to grow your revenue without closing sales and acquiring new customers.
There may be several reasons why you’re not closing enough sales. Do you have a strong sales enablement strategy? Are your product descriptors and marketing collateral up-to-date? Do you have well-developed buyer personas?
What about your inbound lead response processes? Several studies have shown how a quick inbound lead response time boosts your sales success – do you have a system to monitor inbound lead response times?
A deeper analysis of your sales processes may reveal some helpful insights into why you’re not closing enough sales and growing your revenue.
Retaining customers is one of the best ways to protect and grow your revenue over the long term. Data shows that acquiring a new customer is five times more costly than retaining an existing one.
If you’re losing your customers to competitors, you need to interrogate why urgently. Perhaps customers are not getting the information they need about your product or service. Or poor customer service is driving them away.
Ensuring your customers are happy can directly contribute to your revenue. Deloitte found that customers are willing to spend 140% more after a positive experience than customers who report negative experiences.
Which brings us to our next point.
Today, customer experience is more significant to the customer than product or price during the buying cycle. Did you know that 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience? That is how important customer experience is to your customer.
Customers are not afraid to show you when they are unhappy. A survey revealed that 82% of consumers have stopped doing business with a company due to a negative experience. You cannot afford to lose your hard-earned customers in this competitive market.
Keep in mind that unhappy customers like to spread the word. Salesforce Research shows that at least 60% of customers share their bad experiences, causing you to lose future sale potential.
Sometimes the issue with a lack of revenue growth isn’t your sales or customer retention. It’s a simple matter of efficiency.
Suppose you’re spending more money acquiring and servicing customers than you are making from them. In that case, you will run at a loss and struggle to grow your revenue.
Do an audit of your internal sales and customer service processes. Are there any opportunities to introduce automation to drive greater efficiency in those processes? Can you use technology to alleviate the pressure on your team and allow them to focus on higher-value, revenue-generating activities?
Make sure your business runs optimally to eliminate waste and improve your chances of growing your revenue.
Now that you know some of the common reasons why you’re not growing your revenue quickly, let’s take a closer look at some tips for improving your revenue.
One of the simplest ways to improve revenue is to ensure you get the most from your inbound sales leads. A quick inbound lead response time improves your chances at converting sales, leads to happier customers, and boosts your revenue.
A lead response time is defined as the amount of time it takes a customer to get a response to an email. Why is this so important? Quicker response times = more sales. This is because 78% of sales go to the first company to reply.
If that doesn’t convince you, maybe this will: sales teams that respond within an hour are seven times more likely to qualify the lead than those who take two hours to respond. If you are serious about growing revenue, ensure you have optimised email response times for sales success.
Increasing revenue is not always about extensive marketing campaigns but looking for gaps, opportunities and efficiencies. Plugging holes and improving systems ensure your business runs optimally with little wastage.
When you track, measure and analyse, you know what needs improving and where. For inbound sales, for example, you want access to customisable reports that show key metrics such as average response times, peak email periods, conversion rates, nudge rate and deal status.
An email response management system gives you this insight and more. Individuals can track their performance against set benchmarks and SLAs with the help of an in-built alert system that helps them keep track of all their emails. Managers can track how often a lead has to nudge a sales rep for a response, allowing managers to know which team members need support.
Employing software to help you track, measure and analyse ensures you optimise your sales funnel from beginning to end.
Deliver a fantastic customer experience to improve customer retention, boost conversions and ultimately increase revenue.
Customer experience is a crucial consideration for the modern consumer. Customers expect to find information easily, enjoy speaking with friendly sales staff and get quick responses to questions. When customers are happy they are more likely to buy and share their great experience with friends and family.
Sales teams should focus on their cadence of sales touches to guide the customer through the sales funnel smoothly. By delivering the right touch, at the right time, through the right channel, your sales team will boost their chance for success.
It costs money to find new leads. To boost revenue, focus on impressing your existing customers, keeping them happy and engaged. This way, you enjoy less customer churn and improve your chances at upselling to customers, which will boost revenue.
timetoreply Ignite is designed to support sales teams handling inbound email leads. Ignite enables sales teams to improve their handling of inbound sales leads, improving their first reply time, reply rate, number of follow ups per lead, cadence/time between each follow up and more.
Teams using timetoreply Ignite have access to a range revenue-boosting metrics that can help them identify weaknesses in their inbound sales processes that could hamper their ability to close sales. By leveraging real-time data over the inbound sales process, companies can make continuous improvements that can boost hit rates and drive bottom line growth.
You cannot afford to lose your hard-earned customers in this competitive market. RightNow confirmed this with a survey that said 82% of consumers stopped doing business with a company due to a negative experience. That is a disaster if you’re trying to boost your revenue!
Losing customers and recruiting new ones is a costly exercise. Instead, focus on improving customer service to win the hearts and minds customers and boost your customer retention.
Here are our top tips for improving customer service:
Customers expect fast and friendly replies to their queries and emails. Email analytics software keeps track of inbound email and reply times, ensuring you resolve customer queries quickly and efficiently. And that naturally leads to happier customers.
Customers are happy if they receive a friendly, smooth experience. Consider all the touchpoints between your customers and your brand, including website, FAQs, live chat assistance, personalised communication and offers, and response times to queries or complaints.
All these experiences build up to create an impression of your brand. Depending on these experiences, your customer may think your brand is impressive, or they may decide that a competitor would treat them better.
Today, customers expect to be understood and valued. When a customer feels valued, they reward with loyalty. Loyal customers are likely to be repeat buyers, boosting sales and revenue.
Personalisation goes beyond addressing them by name in an email. Personalisation is about understanding when the client last purchased, what channels they prefer to use, how often they are followed up with, and what personalised offer works best for them. Ensure you are using the right technology to track these critical aspects of your customer experience and optimise the way you engage with customers at a personal, individual level.
timetoreply Optimiser enhances the speed and efficiency of individual users’ email performance. timetoreply Optimiser is designed for the individual user as a helpful, easily accessible and private tool for tracking email performance.
Once installed, sales reps can easily track which emails require urgent attention, measure their performance against set SLAs and compare their response times to colleagues.
timetoreply Optimiser tracks, analyses and measures:
Both timetoreply Ignite and timetoreply Optimiser are compatible with all large email platforms. A quick installation gives you all the data insights you need to boost your revenue and success.
Experience the power of email response management software and improve your customer and sales teams’ performance.
Schedule a demo now and discover the future of elevated communication strategies!